Homily: October 9, 2023, Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time (God's will and my will)

 “But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish away from the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went aboard to journey with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord.”

How often do you hear of a prophet of God trying to get away from Him and going the opposite of where he was called? Not often, and today we hear of one.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh, to preach and convert and save the people of Nineveh, to turn them from their wicked and evil ways. 

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. They were notorious for their cruelty and brutality and a constant threat to Israel, the northern Kingdom. No Israelite would ever want to go near to Nineveh.

We would think a prophet would be different because he is someone chosen by God to be His messenger, someone who can identify with the will of God and would be obedient to represent God’s voice, to proclaim His messages and declare His intentions and plans.

But Jonah was not! He understood God’s plan but did not agree with it. So instead of going to Nineveh, which was 725 miles northeast of Joppa, he set sail for Tarshish, a foreign land which was 3000 miles in the southwest, where present-day Spain is.

I think he was very daring indeed, to reject God’s call, but at the same time, he was super foolish, to think that he could escape from God. 

As we all know it, he didn’t succeed in escaping but succeeded in converting the people of Nineveh, just as God had wanted.

And I can personally identify with Jonah. I too, very often, want to reject God’s call and go my way, especially when I know God’s plans are too tough for me. But fortunately, or unfortunately, I do not have Jonah’s guts to escape and run away from God, that’s how I ended up here at St. Ambrose! 

God loves everyone. He wants even the worst sinners to be converted and saved. He does not see people the way we see them. We see and judge the way people behave and live, and avoid those whom we think are different. We choose to associate with and help those whom we agree with, go to the same college, vote for the same party, support the same baseball team or speak the same language.

God sees the value of each person according to the love He created them. He created the whole humankind with great love. When He looks at each of us, He sees love, even in the most difficult, the most stubborn, the most broken souls. He wants everyone to return home to Him.

And interestingly, He does not always call the best man to help Him with the job of preaching and converting. In the Gospel, we see also the most unlikely person, a Samaritan, who finally did the job to save the half-dead man on the roads. We will never know who will lift us up from trouble, or whom we will pick up from doom.

Somehow, God often calls someone who will also be transformed and strengthened in the process through the mission. If we follow God’s will, we may go through war zones, but ultimately, we will end up becoming a better, wiser and holier person.

Jonah went through the big fish’s belly to learn obedience. I have been going through difficult financial times to learn to trust, am still learning.

What about you?

Let us pray for an openness in our hearts to follow God’s call, to never reject His mission, to trust in His plans, to love everyone as He loves. Amen.